Sunday, December 18, 2011

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Holiday 2011: Polly Pocket Race to the Concert Playset

Our nearly 5 year old daughter is a huge Polly Pocket fan! Although she owns several dolls and all sorts of Polly Pocket fashions, she has yet to own a playset. The Polly Pocket Race to the Concert Playset is her first and it managed to impress both of us.

When I first took a look at this set, I thought it looked a little crazy and complex. After I sat down and assembled it, I realized that this toy is the equivalent to a racetrack set for boys, except it is more girly, glitzy, and plays music.

(Click any image to enlarge)

Although the instructions were illustrations without any text, the set was fairly easy to assemble. Even the pieces of track are marked with a letter on each end so you need only to match up two ends marked with the same letter.

This playset offers many things a boy's set does not, such as a mirrored disco ball, a snack stand, and a t-shirt shop.

This set comes with three figures, including Polly Pocket herself. All three come complete with roller skates, a helmet, and a cute skating skirt. This trio puts on quite a performance because the track is designed so well. Why should I be surprised? Mattel does make Hot Wheels after all.

At the start of the show, you just place one doll at the top-most part of each ramp and then the third against the launcher after clicking it into place. Then you manually nudge the two dolls to start down the ramps that circle the two towers. They each land in place on the stage side-by-side. Next, push the button to launch the third doll, who has enough momentum to go through an upside down loop and lands perfectly onto her little sled that spins her right into position in front of the other two dolls. Meanwhile, you hear the concert music and lyrics playing.

This Polly Pocket playset was very well designed. We only had two issues with this toy. The first must have been a quality control issue. There is a sign that hangs on the side of the blue tower, which is suppose to be the skate shop. Well the decal of the dress that came already adhered to the sign was sideways. This in no way affected our daughter's enjoyment of this toy.

The second issue we had was that, while I was assembling the set, my daughter was playing with the figures and Polly came apart. The front of her body separated from the back. I think my daughter was trying to see in what ways the body could be moved since all the dolls are in a slight crouching position. Luckily, a little Super Glue made Polly as good as new.

Regardless of these little flaws, our daughter is having a blast with this toy. She never really showed any interest in her brother's Hot Wheels sets, but she has found this playset to be very engaging and fun. You can learn more about Polly Pocket Race to the Concert on Mattel.com and look for this playset at most major toy retailers nationwide.

Thank you to Mattel for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon.